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UPDATE: Reservations for Be Our Guest can be made starting on August 20th by calling 407-WDW-DINE. Online reservations begin August 22. The first available dinner reservation is for November 19th.
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Finally, we have the details on an opening date for Be Our Guest Restaurant and Gaston’s Tavern in Walt Disney World’s New Fantasyland!

This expanded Magic Kingdom land will feature new rides and attractions as well as two highly anticipated restaurants.

Be Our Guest Restaurant

Starting December 6, 2012, enjoy an enchanted meal surrounded by the lush decor of the Beast’s Castle in the Beauty and the Beast area of the New Fantasyland.

Beast's Castle in the New Fantasyland

Guests will be able to dine counter-service (fast food) for lunch and table-service (sit-down) for dinner, experiencing one of three magical dining rooms: the Library, the West Wing (home of the enchanted rose), or the golden-colored Ballroom that we all remember from the movie.

You’ll be able to make reservations for this experience in late August. Sign up for our Disney Food Blog Newsletter to see details first.

Well, crud. Unless they do an early soft opening, we’ll miss it by two days. My son will be sorely disappointed as we have been showing him the pix online. Guess we’ll have something to look forward to on our next trip, and on the plus side, they’ll have had time to work the kinks out. Looking forward to seeing what others think of it!

Crushed here!! We’ll be there 11/23-12/2 and are not annual pass holders. Guess I’m going to have to work harder at convincing my husband that WDW should become an annual, rather than bi-annual tradition!

AJ – first and foremost, thanks for the most current and up to date info!! I love the podcast and blog!

When I read the email about the December 6th opening I was so disappointed, I had my hopes set for a November opening since everything Disney said was “holiday season”. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a soft opening though, I will be down in the World Nov 10-16, please…oh please don’t make a grown woman cry. 🙂

I knew it was completely wishful thinking, but I’m coming in October. I guessed it wouldn’t be open. We’ve got ALL our reservations in place, but where now in MK? Never eaten table service in MK, so recommendations would be good!

AJ, just listened to the podcast on WDW RADIO with you and Lou! Made me so hungry! You are so great, thank you for all you do for fans like me all the way in England.

@ Chris, are you looking for Dinner or Breakfast or both? 🙂 For breakfast I would recommend Crystal Palace, it’s a character buffet, Winnie the Pooh and Friends. Really good if you have young ones or even if you don’t. For dinner, its become quite a tradition to go to Liberty Tree Tavern. They no longer have the character meals but the food is really good.

@ Chris, I have to agree Crystal Palace for breakfast, as a matter of fact we also love dinner and lunch at Crystal Palace! Depending on how much you want to spend and who is in your party I also LOVE dinner in Cinderella’s castle. If you want to check out all the options and menus check out allears.net, they have menus posted so you can get an idea of what you are getting into!

Any word on whether Gaston’s Tavern will be on DDP? I’d love to eat lunch there one day but would hate to pay out of pocket when we’ll be on the dining plan. Traveling in January and I’m already sooooo excited!!!

I must say, I am really disappointed. I’ve been stalking this blog for weeks in hopes that I’d find out it would be open for Thanksgiving. Come on, Disney! I guess I’ll just have to plan another trip. 🙂

Corrie and Melanie! Thank you! You are so kind to make recommendations for me!

Cost isn’t too much of a factor. It’s kinda a special trip (honeymoon fortnight) and we have DDP but out of pocket is ok too. Would have loved to have taken my partner to Be Our Guest but alas it is not to be! I would be looking for dinner really. I thought about The Plaza? Is that a bad idea? Should I go with counter service? Because we already have a full schedule of dining reservations in place!! We have (in no particular order):

After years of small additions and tweaks it is very exciting to see such a major project at the MK nearing completion. And the fact that Beauty and the Beast is the centerpiece shows that this 21 year old franchise is now standing alongside those other great animated films of the past. And as a bonus to DFB fans the Beast castle with what appears to be fine dining, will be a new highlight. The idea of eating french food at the MK is so great. Balance of probabilities say that the Disney folks will make sure that the quality will be at least as good as Chefs de France. However, the specter of Tony’s Town Square and it’s just o.k. food makes me anticipate AJ’s soon to come reviews

I just made reservations for our February trip yesterday and asked the CM when BOG would start taking reservations and she said the end of August, I was hoping for a date from her but not yet! I will be checking every day for the news, Thanks AJ!

The hard part will be deciding which ADR to cancel once I get BOG, hmm, maybe I should add an extra day!! 😉

So now all is falling into place, but we so need the actual date they will be opening up for ADR’s! I’m so excited and happy it will be so much opening all at the same time! Can’t wait for Christmas!!!

@ Chris, I think you have a pretty good list! I think you’ll be surprised Yak and Yeti is one of my favorites and is often overlooked! The one I would shy away from is Coral Reef, they are either on or off, it’s kind of hit or miss with them. If you are looking for special I would go with dinner in the castle, it is 2 credits on the dinning plan and worth it! I know when we did a birthday celebration there for my 2 years ago they made a huge deal out of it! I know the do celebrations for special events. Never eaten at the plaza so I can’t say how they are. You could also go for California Grill in the contemporary, a quick monorail ride there and back, if you can get the resie for the right time you can watch the fireworks from there over the magic kingdom, that is a pretty romantic spot too!!!

So the November 19th soft opening, does that mean only the fastfood portion will be open or there might be a chance that we could get a reservation for the Be Our Guest restuarant on the 3rd or 4th of December? Sally

Sally — It’s very confusing right now. Disney Parks Blog is stating that reservations will open in late August for those who’d like to dine at BoG “after November 19th,” so it’s possible that reservations will be available during the preview period. Can’t say for sure. Will have to wait for more details.

Regarding the soft opening. If I called after they opened the reservations up and checked to see if they had any before December 6th, would they tell you the resturant would be open on a certain date and make the reservations or would they just take walk in guests? Thank you, Iris

If you are in the mood for a good sandwich and an ice cream treat than the Plaza is a nice place to eat. I usually do lunch there. If you want something a little nicer I would go to the Crystal Palace. As with all Disney restaurants, what one person loves another may not and service can be great one night and not so great the next. The only restaurant on your list that I am not crazy about is the Rainforest Cafe. The atmosphere is nice but I think the menu is nothing to get excited about. The Rainforest Cafe is a chain restaurant and I have been there a few times so maybe I’m just a little jaded. Hope you have a wonderful time.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to me! I am so excited now. I may have to re-enter discussions with my partner about Coral Reef. I was unsure too based on reviews. As for Rainforest Cafe, we have them here in the UK and the one in London is pretty cool. You’re right about the menu though. We just figured, after such a long flight to the USA, then driving ourselves to POR, getting settled in, we figured we needed to just hop on that relaxing boat to DTD and eat some standard, filling American fare! In a stimulating environment! So it’s number 1 on the list of all the reservations we have.

and by number 1, I mean the first restaurant we’re visiting, not the best restaurant we’re visiting ha ha. I’ve a feeling in terms of atmosphere that may be San Angel, for food possibly Kona Cafe? Or Boma. We’ll see.

@chris-
We went in February and one of our faves for dinner was ‘Ohana at the Polynesian. Great food and lots of fun. We also enjoyed the Crystal Palace. Lunch at Pizza Planet (inside Hollywood Studios) was good as well. We ate at Pecos Bills for lunch in MK and it was yummy!
I really don’t know if you can go wrong with anything. We enjoyed every meal and each dinner was a great experience. When we got back a friend asked how our trip was and I said ‘Delicious!’. We’re heading back in December to experience the christmas decor. Our kids have requested the Crystal Palace, Grand Floridian and Chef Mickey’s already for dinner. And we’re staying at POR too. Stayed at French Quarter and loved it before. The boat to DTD is wonderful. Ate at t-Rex there – like Rainforest cafe but with Dinos. Anyway, enjoy your trip and congratulations!

As far as romantic restaraunts are concerned, Jiko’s in the Animal Kingdom Lodge is by far the best for atmosphere as well as amazing food! The French Restaraunt above Chefs de France is incredible as well and if you time it right you can see Illuminations (fireworks) from there, but they don’t accept DDP. Cinderella’s is great & they’ll totally help you with any special occasion (I once witnessed a wedding proposal there where Cinderella brought out the engagement ring on a silver tray, sooo cute!) but you won’t be able to celebrate w alcohol, MK is DRY!!! Artist Point in the Wilderness Lodge is exceptional! Food is crazy good & the lodge itself is beautiful to walk around & see. Coral Reef has pretty standard food but their desserts are really some of the best in Disney and we love watching the sharks & turtles during dinner. Mama Melrose is totally the BEST for Italian food & there’s so many cool things to look at there, it has the best vibe. You can also pair it with Fantasmic! so you can get reserved seats at the show & don’t have to get there super early- worth it! As far as Character dining, Ohana is one of the best! Food isnt standard Disney fare and they have a conga line for the kids, so cute! Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club is great & I’ve heard they’re renovating it over the next few months. Crystal Palace is good for breakfast but I’m not crazy about lunch or dinner, food is so-so. The characters they use might be kind of lame at 1900 Park Fare but their food is incredible, lobster eggs Benedict- yum! Oh and if anyone has a little princess, you’ve got to take them to tea with the princesses at the Grand Floridian too! Hope this helps out!